Photographers' vision for struggling town creates portrait of success

When a growing number of stores were left empty in the town of Blackall, in western Queensland, graziers Sarah Pearson and Lisa Alexander put their heads together.

It was 2016 and years of drought had taken a financial and emotional toll on the community.

"[We] decided we need to showcase something big, showcase our area, our community, and we thought if we had community backing, it'd get momentum," Ms Pearson said.

The pair turned to their shared passion of photography, with their #BetterInBlackall social media campaign inspiring the community to take snapshots of the region that were then used to cover empty shop windows.

Ms Pearson said the "flow-on effect" from that one idea over the last 10 years had been incredible, with the campaign triggering a revamp of the town's annual festival and becoming the basis of Blackall's welcome signs.

Quirkiness a valuable commodity for towns

First impressions were of great importance for towns, community consultant Peter Kenyon said.

"Things that we do with our town entrance statements, the state of our main street, what shops do with their window displays, all of those things matter," he said.

"We've got to constantly be looking at our communities with fresh eyes and asking, 'What can we do?'"

For the third National Small Town Reinvention Conference, Mr Kenyon took 80 delegates from around the country on a tour through outback Queensland, visiting eight towns in the central west.

He estimated 70 per cent of small towns were dying but Queensland's outback had bucked the trend.

"If I had to list, for example, the 20 best tourist attractions or events or activities that go on in small towns, at least a dozen of them would be out here in western Queensland."

Mr Kenyon said humour and quirkiness could have a real impact for towns that wanted to reinvent themselves.

"How do we make our community a place where we all want to keep raising our family, where our young people will go off, maybe to uni or travel the world, but want to one day come back and contribute?" he asked.

Councils strengthen local relationships

Ben Forbes, CEO of Yilgarn Shire Council located between Kalgoorlie and Perth, said he attended in the hope of learning how his community could turn its trajectory around.

"You can talk to anybody that's been there forever and they can remember back in the heyday," he said.

"The wheat belt's in a bit of a slump at the moment."

Mr Forbes used to work in accounting in Perth, but found he was more inspired to use his skills to help a small community.

"I think people are just very genuine out in the country. There's no facade," he said.

"They care about their community."

Isisford's Big Yellowbelly sculpture stood out to him as an example of how a town could unite to tell its story.

"I think more than anything, it's building that shared identity," Mr Forbes said.

"Yilgarn has a lot of really good community members, a lot of little groups, because we're quite geographically spread out.

"So for me, primarily, it's about how can we bring that together into one sort of unified thing."

Community builds on heritage

Blackall-Tambo Regional Council has continued its focus on improving the town's presentation with its Shopfront Renewal Program, which stimulated $315,000 of co-funded investment into landscaping, signage and painting.

Blackall-Tambo Councillor Boyd Johnstone said reinventing a town took the backing of locals.

"You need to have a grassroots push for such projects to be successful."

Cr Johnstone has experience in running with an idea to inject a spark into his community.

When Blackall Masonic Lodge disbanded in 2016, he preserved and restored the heritage-listed building into a cafe, gallery and antique store with his partner Chris Kadel.

"We love our community and sort of just gut instinct knew we would be supported and it was what the community needed," he said.

He recalled it was over a coffee in the refurbished building with philanthropist Owen Stockwell and Louise Campbell from not-for-profit Red Ridge Interior that an idea was born to preserve the region's cultural items.

The idea has become the ongoing $21 million Blackall Cultural Precinct project funded by the federal government, Blackall-Tambo Council and Red Ridge Interior.

"We now have two giant storage facilities, which have climate-controlled storage containers, fireproof safes. Yeah, it's pretty incredible," Cr Johnstone said.

The town has also harnessed its heritage with the restoration of the Blackall Historical Woolscour and the launch of the Outback Circus Carnival.